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Here's another reason to give up smoking.  It may make you want to commit suicide. Seriously, a new study has found that smoking may contribute to suicide risk. Cigarette smokers are more likely to commit suicide than people who don’t smoke, studies have shown.  In the past, this used to be attributed to the fact that many people with psychiatric illnesses, smoke, and they, of course, may be more prone to suicide.  But new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis finds that smoking itself may increase suicide risk and that policies to limit smoking reduce suicide rates.  The study reports that suicide rates declined up to 15 percent, relative to the national average, in states that implemented higher taxes on cigarettes and stricter policies to limit smoking in public places. “Our analysis showed that each dollar increase in cigarette taxes was associated with a 10 percent decrease in suicide risk,” said author Richard A. Grucz...

A shocking new study has found that boys who will be boys and girls who are made of sugar and spice are most likely to develop cancer.  "Young people who conform most strongly to norms of masculinity and femininity—the most 'feminine' girls and the most 'masculine' boys—are significantly more likely than their peers to engage in behaviors that pose cancer risks," newswise.com reports. “Our findings indicate that socially constructed ideas of masculinity and femininity heavily influence teens’ behaviors and put them at increased risk for cancer. Though there is nothing inherently masculine about chewing tobacco, or inherently feminine about using a tanning booth, these industries have convinced some teens that these behaviors are a way to express their masculinity or femininity,” the Web site quotes lead author Andrea Roberts, research associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at HSPH. Tobacco use, indoor tanning, and physical inactiv...

I remember years ago taping up the vent in my bathroom so I wouldn't smell the smoke coming from the apartment next door.  My neighbor was a chain smoker and the smell of it filled my apartment. Now it turns out he was a cancer risk not only for himself but for me, too. A new study has found that "third-hand" smoke, or l eftover cigarette smoke "that clings to walls and furniture is a smelly nuisance, but now research suggests that it could pose a far more serious threat, especially to young children who put toys and other smoke-affected items into their mouths," according to newswise.com. Scientists reported today that one compound from this “third-hand smoke,” which forms when second-hand smoke reacts with indoor air, damages DNA and sticks to it in a way that could potentially cause cancer. I now live in a house where this is not a problem but I remember those days clearly, having my clothes and hair smell of smoke when I -- or anyone else who lived wi...

It's been quite some time since cigarettes have been advertised as sophisticated and status-y, though, when I was growing up in the '60s and early '70s, smoking ads were as ubiquitous as well, commercials for Optimum. In those days the cancer sticks, as they were sometimes called, were allowed to be advertised on TV and smokers were everywhere, in the movies, TV shows, on magazine covers (remember magazines?). But over time, the ads have either disappeared, or changed.  At first I was fascinated by the woman who lost her fingers and toes to smoking, or the one who was bedridden after a stroke and had to be cared for, for everything, by her preteen son, or the man, hawking up his lungs in the mirror. But they're even more hard-core today.  I can barely watch the young man in bed who's had a stroke and lies motionless and barely breathing in a bed, his tormented eyes seeming, to me at least, to be beseeching the camera to let him die, now, or the gaunt man in t...

Another frightening fact about teenagers and alcohol .  "On an average day, 881,684 teenagers aged 12 to 17 smoked cigarettes, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report also says that on an average day 646,707 adolescents smoked marijuana and 457,672 drank alcohol," according to newswise.com. To put this in (terrifying) perspective: the number of adolescents using marijuana on an average day "could almost fill the Indianapolis Speedway (seating capacity 250,000 seats) two and a half times," the Web site reports. OMG. "This data about adolescents sheds new light on how deeply substance use pervades the lives of many young people and their families," newswise.com quotes SAMHSA administrator Pamela S. Hyde. “While other studies indicate that significant progress has been made in lowering the levels of some forms of substance use among adolescents in the past decade, this report shows tha...

Quick.  What's the difference between energy drinks and cigarettes?  Not enough, says the Senate.  And they want the drinks to be regulated the same as cigarettes, because, like their tobacco cousins in the past, they're covertly marketed to kids. According to the thehill.com, the tobacco industry once told everyone they weren't interested in kids.  “We knew better," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told a Senate panel on Wednesday. "We knew if they could get them hooked early on it would become an addiction and one hard to break. We’re getting the same runaround from these energy drink companies. They are openly advertising to kids and denying it.” “It’s exactly what’s happening and we can’t kid ourselves about the direct correlation that exists between the market practices and the increased use by younger people of these beverages,” thehill.com quotes Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). What's the problem?  Well, energy drinks contain caffeine and oth...

We knew it all along.  Ads do lead people to do things and now a new study has proved that cigarette ads do, indeed, lead teens to smoke. Movies feature fewer people smoking these days than in the past, and while you still don't see an actor walk into a party or restaurant and the first thing they do is light up a cigarette, but the cigarettes are still there, and they're still considered cool. My own mom began smoking when she was 11 (and this was back in the 1930s) because her best friend did, and while my mom was able to quit in her 70s, her friend went on smoking -- and hacking, even through emphysema -- until she died in her mid-80's. I was lucky.  The smell of smoke always filled our house and I couldn't stand it, or the sight of all those ashtrays (though my mom was a clean smoker, and emptied them almost as quickly as they were filled).  As a result, I've chosen never to smoke and am probably the only living person the planet who has never held a ci...

It's been out there for some time but more and more studies are pointing to the decreasing life expectancy of women who are white and don't have much education. At first it was thought that cigarettes were the culprit, as many in this population smoke. But now a new study has found that joblessness also shortens lifespans for women. No one is quite sure why this should be, but as someone who has fought unemployment as a freelance writer for long stretches of my life (thank God, often followed by long stretches of work), I know how depressing and life-draining it can be. I get my identity from my work (when I first became a mother, I thought I had lost myself), and when I'm not working, or writing, I start to shrink.  I feel like everyone is looking at me and thinking I'm a failure (in reality, no one cares!), but the worst part is, I feel like a failure.  I don't know where this comes from as I grew up in a traditional Italian family, where my bigger failu...